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EBay Is Shutting Down Its On-Demand Delivery Service
An anonymous reader writes: It may come as no surprise but eBay made it official in a statement today; they are ending their on-demand delivery service eBay Now. The company also plans to end a number of mobile applications, including eBay Valet, eBay Fashion and eBay Motors. A company statement reads in part: "...today we are retiring the eBay Now service in the U.S., including the local Brooklyn pilot program. Last year, we retired our eBay Now app and brought the program's delivery capabilities and many participating merchants' inventory into our core mobile apps. This significantly reduced our dependency on a separate standalone service. While we saw encouraging results with the eBay Now service, we always intended it as a pilot, and we are now exploring delivery and pick-up/drop-off programs that are relevant to many more of our 25 million sellers, and that cover a wider variety of inventory that consumers tell us they want. We will continue to pilot scheduled delivery in the UK."
samzenpus combing the web- posting old news
It may come as no surprise
In other words, this should be a non-news? Please tell me why I should have expected the demise of a service I did not know about.
This is probably just a mistake in the writeup or something, but eBay Motors closing is MUCH bigger news than eBay Now. I have a feeling, however, that this was just a mistake in the writeup, as I can't find any other reference to eBay ending that service.
Never heard of eBay Now until today. Having hard time imagining on-demand delivery vs. what... by subscription delivery?
Long time user, and eBay shareholder here; I guess I should have paid more attention to annual reports.
No its really the opposite. If you sell something and someone files a complaint you automatically lose. People won the auction but don't feel like paying so they file a complaint and you're on the hook for a refund even if they're wrong.
What eBay needs is competition.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
People still use eBay?
Yes. As opposed to what?
I, for example, regularly buy cheap Chinese imported solder paste off eBay. It's about an order of magnitude cheaper than the "proper" stuff from Farnell/RS/etc and seems to work just fine. I think there's one or two amazon vendors selling it for a vastly inflated price, too.
And etc.
Ebay seems to be a great source of random bits and bobs, e.g. m3 studding cut to length with accompanying butterfly nuts, or a small hot air rework station. ebay seems to be by far the best source for such things.
Some of the companies selling through ebay are getting quite sizable. Many of them are Chinese, selling stuff made probably in Shenzen to the wider world. There's a few which have got big enough to stock warehouses in the UK to reduce delivery times and shipping costs.
eBay is like paradise for someone who likes making stuff.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
People still use eBay? Is this the same eBay that became a scammer's paradise where no matter what you do, you're screwed? As a buyer you can be screwed easily enough, but as a seller I wouldn't waste my time. The risks so far outweigh the benefits that it's more like legalized gambling with the loser being the highest bidder.
Despite what the guys at the bar down at the Legion say, there are actual stores run by actual business professionals on ebay. They've got their system pretty well honed to expose anyone who is a scammer. People and businesses I've bought from bend over backwards to keep you happy.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I've never understood why eBay felt the need to separate eBay Motors from the rest of the website, but it would follow that they would create a separate app for it as well.
Because selling a car is different than most other merchandise. I used to own an auction company and made much of my living selling through eBay, including cars. For merchandise eBay can enforce a contract to sell. For cars transfer of ownership comes with transfer of title and eBay cannot force you to sell the car for the auction price. In essence it is a glorified classified listing. If you decide not to sell the car you merely have to refuse to sign over the title and there isn't anything eBay can do about that.
People still use eBay?
EBay apparently had $17 billion in revenue last year so I'm guessing the answer is yes.
Is this the same eBay that became a scammer's paradise where no matter what you do, you're screwed?
It's not quite that bad but you do need to be careful.
As a buyer you can be screwed easily enough, but as a seller I wouldn't waste my time. The risks so far outweigh the benefits that it's more like legalized gambling with the loser being the highest bidder.
That is why I no longer own the auction company I held about 10 years ago. It was basically impossible to deal with eBay. They would raise fees every 6 months like clockwork. Any buyer could simply invoke the magic words "not as described" and get their money back. You couldn't defend yourself against unjustified bad feedback. Makers of luxury goods (like Louis Vuitton) could simply shut your auction down with a strike against you even if the merchandise was 100% legit. (and yes this happened to us regularly) The amount of labor in running an auction is ludicrous.
Buying on eBay has risks but generally manageable ones. Selling on eBay has risks that are not really manageable if you are doing more than selling some chotchkies.